Topic:

Public/Private

The recent DHS Inspector General test of TSA airport screening processes revealed a 95% failure rate. To improve, tradeoffs will have to be made, and they all have costs. How much the failure rate changes will depend on how much people will want to pay.

The proposed Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Act of 2015 (H.R. 2899) could benefit from a bit more study and debate. The bill would create a CVE Office within DHS, filling a hole that should not exist in DHS. It was not always this way.

The House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on what the federal government is doing to counter terrorism; the Committee also passed the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Act of 2015. Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is yet another acronym in the fight against terrorism and perhaps another chance to get it right.

There’s an old axiom in science and statistics: correlation does not imply causation. Sometimes what walks and talks like a duck isn’t actually a duck. Technical glitches on Wednesday sure looked like a cyber attack…but they weren’t. Here’s how we know.

Bradley Saull recently announced that he was leaving the House Homeland Security Committee staff, where he has worked for the past two years, to join the Professional Services Council. He may be leaving the government, but thank goodness he is not leaving the homeland security mission.

This week, the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies held a hearing: “Examining DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s Engagement with Academia and Industry.” The committee members all but ignored what is actually going on in DHS S&T, and their myopia was encouraged by three witnesses who appeared to be accomplices to the debacle rather than advisors on how to understand the problems and fix them. How can you have a hearing about “engagement with academia” and not one time mention the S&T Directorate’s Office of University Programs?

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced at the 2015 RSA Conference that DHS is opening a satellite office in Silicon Valley. His words were vague, leading to questions of why DHS is setting up this office and with whom the Department will be working. Perhaps a more pressing question is, what makes DHS think Silicon Valley wants to work with the federal government in the first place?

Cyber incidents are escalating in frequency, duration, and complexity, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to issue new cybersecurity disclosure rules, which are needed to help prevent “Information failure.”

The travel and tourism industry would benefit from understanding how well the efforts of TSA contribute to improved customer service at our nation’s airports. Fortunately, they provide this data to the Department of Transportation (DOT). This analysis shows some of the impacts before and after the introduction of Pre-Check.

Fans of the space epic Star Wars are eagerly awaiting the release of the next installment in the film, but there is already a real-life battle in space, and the U.S. government is looking to the private sector for help. Defense Sec. Ash Carter recently spoke of a “GPS of Things.” What is that and what does it mean for the future of warfare and commerce?

Security Debrief is a blog dedicated to homeland security, terrorism and counter-terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement that provides context to the debates, policies and politics that are playing out in Washington, D.C.